Velocitas Eradico: US Navy set record with 33 Megajoule Railgun

I saw a blurb in the 2011 AWST Source book talking about the USN's testing of electromagnetic catapults and it mentioned this test shown below. In its
current energy levels it could send a 20 lb projectilve at up to Mach 8 and a potential range of 100 miles. The plan is to ramp it up to 64 megajoules
and that would allow it to send a projectile 200 miles in 6 minutes. The article talks about using it for cruise missile defence and im not sure how
usefull it would be in that application UNLESS they had downrange manueuver ability in the projectile.

Clearly its not ready for prime time. Its the size of a school bus and it takes 5 minutes to power up and shoot and no mention is made of the reload
time. The navy want to sea test it by 2018 with an eye for deployment by 2020

Interesting for sure, I wonder what a weapon like that would do to the local birds, fish. Maybe there might be a loud noise which to the casual
observer would appear to come from nowhere. Very interesting indeed. If it were tested from land that is.

Originally posted by lewman
would you need to reload or just simply recharge, if so then the reload time would be the recharge time.
s&f

edit- by recharge i mean power up

edit on 26-1-2011 by lewman because: see above

It fires a slug of solid material. This material doesn't appear of it's own accord when the enery levels get high enough, it would need to be placed
there. A rail gun is new because it doesn't use explosive force to propell the slug, it uses magnetic force, so it's both reload and recharge. The
reload is probably the lesser of the two problems at hand though.

I m thinking reloads are done by huge freakin capacitors which zap back a snap that could reenergize the beast....
maybe on a neuclear powered battleship or entirely new weapon platform designed around the gun.
Surely though this is not the end all of weapons.
The range could be covered by ultra high speed missiles as wll.
Perhaps with new drive technology and the use of the townsend brown effect, other better and more efficient projectiles may be forthcomming.

I could only imagine this kind of weapon replacing something like the 105 howitzers currently being used on our C-130 spectre's. With that kind of
momentum, you could apply a conically shaped charge that would spread out shrapnel at head level at supersonic speeds and have a much wider area of
lethality than the 105 howitzer.

If the re-load time is a few minutes but the weapons system is light enough, you could apply a gatling-like capability and an automated reloading
system.

If this technology starts making its way onto the battlefield in different ways, it will inevitably lead to specialized projectile configurations
too.

However, it might be possible to pack all the hardware necessary for an immense railgun into a C-130 and design the weapon to handle the largest
projectile possible. Imagine a projectile that could spread out like slices of a cake, only designed such that it would spread it's shrapnel
darts/penetrators at supersonic speeds. The sub-munitions could also act as either pentetrators or high explosive/incendiaries. Imagine these
"cake" slices containing golf-ball sized sub-munitions that would detonate above and/or penetrate the ground at supersonic speeds.

If designed properly, such a device could dessimate an area the size of an entire town!

As far as ground-based systems, IMO, the new automated/robotic cannons just now coming out that automatically reload themselves along with the new
"palladin" GPS-guided artillery rounds are absolutely impressive.

However, The railgun application could also be used in battle at key pinch points like bridges. For example, imagine an enemy convoy traveling across
a bridge (Tanks, APC's, etc..). You could take out an entire convoy with one well-aimed shot from a pre-positioned railgun that doesn't even have
to be manned. If they eventually figured out what shot at them, you could rig the entire system to detonate at the push of a button.

I see this kind of railgun as having a much better tactical advantage if used air to ground though rather than a ground-based weapons platform. As
far as bridges go, usually they're taken out from the air by stealth aircraft after communications can be disabled. This is exactly what happened
during desert storm I think. Key choke points can be used as a tactical advantage from a ground-based standpoint but these days they're destroyed
before the enemy can even use them.

The Air Force and Navy, typically, can destroy key choke points and command/control infrastructure before the enemy even knew what hit them. My uncle
was an EA-6B Prowler pilot during desert storm and he was one of the first to take out enemy radar sites (though I believe the AGM-88 is the only
weapon that airplane can fire).

It might also be possible to apply the railgun with EMP capabilities where a specially-designed projectile could detonate a certain distance above
ground level and send out a supersonic EMP burst that could cover an extremely wide area.

It would probably make sense to make into the main gun for a navy ship of some sort as well as using them in planes, might make navy more effective
against land based targets. (and it is pretty effective already)

its getting scary the level of deadliness technology is reaching. I always am even more apprehensive because this is the what the Navy/US govmnt
WANTS us to see. I shudder to think of the technology that they DONT want us to see or know about. I guess its still better to have the biggest
baddest weaponry around to act as a deterrent. Dont mess with us or we will unleash Shock and Awe upon you!! good thread OP. S&F

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